I emailed my city bus service asking whether they would allow me to use their bus route data in an iPhone app with ads, and got no response. If I did create the app, and profited from the ads, would they be able to, or likely to, sue me or demand that I pull the app?
I know this isn't strictly programming-related but I don't know who to ask, and it isn't a big enough deal that I would go talk to a lawyer.
i would say that bus times and routes fall under public information and lye within the public domain in terms of intellectual property.
In the UK where i live, i would highly doubt you'd be sued for it. If you live in america, i don't know, people seem to want to sue each other for everything and anything.
So long as you don't mention company names, have any images of buses with logos on or anything like that, numbers, times and routes aren't information that can be copywrited i don't think?
Plagiarism (mildly on topic) seems to go completely unpoliced on the app store, for every good app there are 6 or 7 directly stealing ideas or ripping it off. I personally think you'd be safe with this, and if anything did come of it, you approached them asking for permission, they chose to ignore you.